You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
6 percent
Monmouth University released the results of a poll Monday that sought to figure out what New Jerseyans thought of Gov. Chris Christie’s ill-advised beach adventure. Eighty-six percent of respondents had seen the photos. The pollster also reported that “another 6 percent of those polled simply used some form of profanity to express their sentiments about Christie’s beach day.” [Politico]
7 percent
Amazon is building a competitor to Geek Squad, a service offered by Best Buy to install, set up and repair tech. The news of this fact Monday morning led to a 7 percent drop in Best Buy’s stock, wiping out $1 billion in market cap within hours. [Recode]
125 theaters
Christopher Nolan’s latest film, “Dunkirk,” was shot entirely on 70-millimeter large-format film, all 106 minutes of it. It’s getting released in 70 mm at 125 theaters. If this play is a financial success, it could be huge for an industry that is presumably running out of two-dimensional media to throw money at. [The Atlantic]
300,000 umbrellas
A startup in China that sought to apply the bike-sharing business model to umbrellas has lost almost 300,000 umbrellas over the course of a few weeks. [Shanghaiist]
$50 million
How much money the companies behind Viagra and Cialis spent on advertising during NFL games last season. The pair won’t buy advertising this season, so God only knows what the poor ad copywriter who comes up with network-TV-friendly ways of talking about erections will do to feed his presumably numerous kids. [NBC Sports]
$3.17 billion
Warren Buffett donated $3.17 billion in stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other charities Monday. [Reuters]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.